Monday, January 27, 2014

"Symbiotic"


    We cannot know grace apart from truth, nor can we rightly respond to truth without grace.  They bear, as it were, a spiritually symbiotic relationship to one another.

    "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.  And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth... The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:14; 17).

    We receive God's grace by believing truth.
  "Ye heard before in the word of the truth of the Gospel, which is come unto you, as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth" (Colossians 1:3-6).  We do not believe in a vague or nebulous "Jesus" in order to begin or experience relationship with the true and living Christ.  "He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).  "As the Scripture hath said" - our Lord provides the basis for a genuine reception of God's grace according to the parameters of His Word.  Do we believe in the Christ of the Bible?  Or it is "another Jesus," of which the Apostle Paul warned? (II Corinthians 11:4).  The genuine Lord Jesus provides grace only in accordance with His truth, that is, according to His character, nature, and way revealed "as the Scripture hath said."

    Such proper response to truth in order to receive grace also requires grace.  God must reveal His grace to us in order initiate and maintain interest and recognition of His supply and our need.  "There is none that seeketh after God" (Romans 3:11).  The Shepherd seeks His lost sheep, who do not even know they've wandered from the fold apart from the call of His voice.  Moreover, He must work in our hearts even after our return in order to maintain and enable faithful abiding.   This He does by His Spirit, and while we freely respond, we also freely give all glory to the Shepherd for His loving and empowering involvement.  King David beautifully illustrated this truth in his affirmation of devotion: "I will love Thee, o Lord, my strength!" (Psalm 18:1).  David determines to love - "I will" - but he does so in full recognition of the Power necessary to fulfill his holy decision - "O Lord, my strength!" 

    Thus, grace and truth unite in the spiritual symbiosis incomprehensible and inexplicable save in the person of the Lord Jesus.  He is "full of grace and truth," and in Him we discover the access of grace by truth, and the apprehension of truth by grace.  How both streams unite and flow in human hearts we cannot fully comprehend or explain.  Who provides the flowing fount of grace and truth we can, however, declare with full assurance.  Indeed, we look to the Christ of the Bible in order to access the grace of truth.  And we look to the Same in order to believe the truth of grace.

"
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him: rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."
(Colossians 2:6-8)

Weekly Memory Verse           
     The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
(Deuteronomy 29:29)


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